If you thought the Pinnacles was adventurous, they you gotta try Big Rocks. Located off Hwy. 166 on Rock Front Ranch. Cobbles in half-baked sandstone. If you pick the 3 star routes, you can actually get in some really good climbing. There are a set of spires called Twin Rocks nearby on the hillside (you can’t miss ‘em) with some airy summits and some cool aid up horrific rock. None come easy. I think Precious has only seen a second ascent. Summer is hot, fall is best, but spring will do but mind the ticks. Sometimes closed during the winter after rain.

Larry Harris on Flowers on Venus 5.8, a great route up cobbles and holes on the back Outerspace Wall.

Credit: Slater

Paul Bernard on Deep Impact .10a.

Credit: Slater

Stephanie Utterback on Dodgeball 5.7.

Credit: Slater

Slater on Sith .9, on a nearby crag called Miller’s Crossing.

Credit: Slater

Slater on the FA of Tempest .10c, an intimidating line at Miller’s.

Credit: Slater

Brandon Thau on top of the first spire after the FA of the Slater-Thau .10/A1.

Credit: Slater

Twin Rocks from the 4x4 ridge.

Credit: Slater

Slater on the onsight/onlead FA of Precious .9, one of the most dangerous routes on the coast. Yes, a lot of those bowling ball sized rocks are loose. Brandon finished the route. 70' of climbing took us nearly 3 hours.

Credit: Slater

This shot was on the cover of the Santa Maria Times. Ken Klis and I were able to rescue a pair of sheep that had been stranded on a 2’ wide ledge 100’ up a cliff nearby for over 4 weeks. CDF lowered a waterline in from above to keep them alive. It took two climbers and a crane to finally get ‘em down.
I literally took the ram by the horns and chucked him in the basket. The ewe was waaaay tougher.

Do you have a picture with 'real' sheep on a wall? Seems that there might be a Pass The Pitons Pete joke in there somewhere - I seem to remember reading an Evans report last summer(?) that had PTPP and an inflatable sheep.

Let's just say the sheep were nervous enough without all that nonsense. When they took Ken and the Ram down in the basket they left me up on the ledge with the lady sheep and she was not taking a liking to me. If she had charged me I would have fallen about 100' which would have sucked. But I would have taken her with me...

I swear this is the other half of the Pinnacles that drifted south, but is even "better" rock. Munge, you gotta come back but not in spring (tick) season. Do "Precious" at Twin Rocks and you'll find your inner climber for reals.

Just got back from a New Year's Eve session at Big Rocks. My partner Coby and I put in a couple new routes and went up to fix up the top anchor by the summit boulder but found that someone added some nice chains to the old top anchor. Thank you whoever you are - you beat me to it!

Munge - not one tick!

Here are a couple pics from the day...

Coby on the Big Cheesy, Big Rocks.

Credit: Slater

New Chains! Nice.

Credit: Slater

Coby topping out. Nice winter day!

Credit: Slater

The classic Waterfall.

Credit: Slater

The first bolt of Triple Decker 5.7.

Credit: Slater

Adventure is not dead... pinnacle baggin' at Big Rocks. Coby on top of Triple Decker 5.7.

The gate has been locked for a couple weeks so we hiked in (about 1.5 miles to Big Rocks). There were trees down on the road, and boulders in the road that have falled from the steep hillsides above. We finished our project "Moss Do It" 5.6, which adds a second pitch to the Waterfall route. Good postion and of course a little sketchy... "Needs traffic".
Empty, green, and silent (except the sound of tiny waterfalls). Quite a stark contrast between the 90+degree temps, roar of motocycles, and gunshots that come during summer. Ahhh winter time. It's good to be local.

NOTE: I'm going to replace the top anchor next to the summit boulder. That boulder is going to roll off the summit (it's a down hill slope and perched to move!) and it'll run right over the belay. Also, with a 60m rope you end up 5' above the middle anchor on "Wild 5.9", which is directly below, and it's likely someone is going to rap off the end of their rope trying to get to it. An anchor already exists 10' below the top anchor anyway, so this anchor isn't necessary.

The video reel made it on the Los Angeles news. We just wanted our private crag back and for all the news trucks to leave. Now it's just us and the sheep once again ;)
Greg Barnes at ASCA is pitching in some anchors to replace that old one below the summit boulder. I'll get to it after the freakin' road opens back up and the rain stops!
Thanks once again to ASCA!

For some stupid reason the NFS has the gate closed even though the river is like 4" deep and the roads are dusty and cracked dry.
My 7 year old and I went to go climb but no dice. We ended up in the river looking at boulders and saw Mtn. Lion prints stalking deer prints. Kind of heeby jeeby-ish so we bailed without committing to wading the creek.

Ted, outstanding! Bump for your link!!
Nice wide angle lens really shows what it is like out there.
That scree pile at the base of Tower 3 (Precious) all came off on the FA (your welcome). Scary line... Good on ya!
That place really is beautiful, even if it isn't the greatest rock (or any good at all!).

Nice link for big rocks as well!
What lens is that? Fish eye?
Very cool...

Thanks Tom, your original route descriptions on the alt site rc.com helped us immensely on these explorations. We love the character and atmosphere of this area. A few shots were with the Nikon 10.5 fish eye but most with the 12-24, 17-55 zooms or compacts of the day.

I should add we had our scariest trip in there when the gate was open after heavy rains. There are several clay sections that even my Jeep Rubicon with 4WD locked axles was helpless and we sweated bullets sliding sideways towards a big drop off where normal brake, steering and drive inputs had absolutely no effect.

When we stepped out of the distressed Jeep the clay immediately clumped up to create useless Frankenstein boots. Almost as exciting as plucking critical cobbles out of the walls above the last suspect bolt!

One of those bolts in the photos shows what looks like a Chuck Richards type home made hanger. Richards put up a lot of FA's in the Pinnacles in the early 70's and wrote the 1974 guide. I believe he lived in Santa Maria which is in the proximity of Big Rocks.